


Finally Reaching Anne

by RobynJSwift



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Adopted Anne Boleyn, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anne hasn't been taking care of herself, Being historically accurate is hard, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Catherine Parr, Mentions of Edward VI, Mentions of Elizabeth I, Mentions of Thomas Seymour, More Crying, Motherly Jane (What a beautiful lady), Reincarnation is hard, Teenage Anne Boleyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 09:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22967638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobynJSwift/pseuds/RobynJSwift
Summary: Jane has noticed that Anne has been having a rough time, or rather has noticed she hasn't been leaving her room much. As the stay-at-home mother of all the queens and the most worried of them, she takes it upon herself to try and confront Anne about this.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 86





	Finally Reaching Anne

**Author's Note:**

> There's a longer story that I'm working on for this, this is the only chunk I've written out yet. But knowing me the full story probably won't ever be completely written. This story (which is intended to be a personal AU for a boatload of canon tweaks) also has moments like this one that don't need much clarification (details to be released if I ever actually finish the story). Jane in a position as the most motherly figure of the house (naturally) and she's brought each queen into her home one by one. This is a bit after Parr has moved into the home, the rest of the queens already living there. Anne Boleyn is an adopted 15-year-old here.

Jane was instilled with a constant worry, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about the teenager who refused to let anyone into her bedroom and refused to let anyone take care of her whatsoever. It had been many times which Jane has checked, she hears Anne’s door open, she lets Anne do what she needs without disturbing her so she isn’t scared off, she quietly checks if she can open her door after the girl has gone in. These last few times Jane debated it better to wait a few moments before checking so that she wouldn’t feel as though she were checking so constantly, it didn’t change a thing. Over the past four days this is what the routine had been, Anne silently going off to school, going to the bathroom, grabbing food, anything she needed and only shortly after for Jane to check. Catherine had told Jane not to worry, usually her words worked but this time doing that just felt wrong. It made her wonder if Catherine had something against the older teen. Katherine had gotten super worried as well, but her attempts to have Anne let her in were always met with rejection so she decided to slip letters under the door to show her distant care. Jane found it cute but also more worrisome if Anne wouldn’t even let the one person closest to her into the room.

Now she was trying again, now was around her thirty-somethingth attempt. This time, her heart leapt at the feeling of the doorknob completely turning rather than silently halting in her grasp. She had high hopes the angry teen wouldn’t lash out at her or anything of the sort.

Her thoughts were dropped as soon as she realized she had heard a very gentle sound, a sorrowful series of scattered sobs. Inhaling her courage, she exhaled her concern before opening the door. Anne was many times more broken than she sounded. The girl’s eyes were so red, tears in constant flow, eyes glued to the laptop screen in front of her, her body stiff from trying to still her sounds but jerked in a hiccup-like manner from the movements that go with her pain.

Jane felt her heart ground into sand and drowned under the pain of the girl in front of her. It didn’t take her a moment to think, she quickly went to the open side of the bed and crawled up onto it. She was unsure if Anne even felt her next to her, she reached a gentle hand onto Anne’s forearm.

Looking to the laptop, she hardly scanned over the contents and saw a portrait of Thomas Seymour peeking out from the bottom of the screen as text was over top it detailing mentions of acts that he had done against Elizabeth, inappropriate acts. She immediately thought of her son, knowing Anne cared so deeply for someone she couldn’t reach. All the pieces were in place for Jane to put together.

Jane moved slowly to embrace Anne as she noticed her actions hadn’t been rejected, Anne then pushed the laptop aside and curled into a ball after dropping its screen onto the keyboard. There was a short moment when Jane swore she could feel Anne lean further into her, causing her to adjust her hold on the girl in a more snug manner with one of her arms and to gently rub her back with the opposing hand.

“It’ll be okay, Anne. Everything is going to be okay,” she spoke and the weeping girl had turned to her, opening from her curled up position and hugging her with her head at her shoulder and the top of her head gently against Jane’s neck. Her entire body vibrated with active sobs but Jane adjusted with her, her hold on the girl becoming tighter and more protective.

The woman couldn’t imagine how the teen felt, she’d never known her son to be wounded aside from what ill had brought him death at the age of 15, in fact she never even knew her son as closely as Anne had known her daughter. Anne had a few precious years with Elizabeth, years she must have desperately wished weren’t cut so short. She wondered if Anne hated Parr for being associated with Thomas and then wondered why she hadn’t felt that way about Jane herself before it clicked. She’d been asked if he harmed her, she gave an answer that showed a lack of fondness but the implication that Catherine Parr had married the man willingly must have felt like an act against her daughter, especially if she didn’t act against Thomas.

Jane reasoned that she must be so mad at Thomas, at Parr for being associated with him, maybe even at the rest of the queens for letting Parr move in despite what horrors Anne feels she’s done against her. At least that was the best she could conclude, she may have to wait a while to even get an answer due to how crushed the girl had been.

She did, Jane waited patiently as she poured all her love into her, speaking soothing words to the girl as her distraught feelings never seemed to end. The girl was horribly warm, obviously not supporting her own weight at all and smelt slightly foul from a scent that the woman couldn’t identify. They did end eventually, after a couple hours of Anne falling into a loop, crying with intense sobs, crying with slight shaking and whimpering, body vibrating as her tears lessened, the pain she felt smacking her again to bring her back to where she started. She probably completed the loop six times over before Jane started to really worry about how she physically felt after all these tears.

“Anne, honey, take a deep breath and try to talk to me. You’re just going to keep breaking again if you don’t try and stop it. I can’t imagine you possibly feel well after all these tears,” Jane slightly parted from the girl and Anne separated enough to look at her in return.

The drops were smaller as they fell over her face, if that was because they lessened or her skin was already moist from previous tears that made them seem smaller, Jane couldn’t tell. She looked to the bedside table for some tissues, finding a couple used but many unused. Why didn’t Anne use more?

Jane set the question aside as she grabbed a couple, using them to wipe the girl’s face clean before grabbing another and handing it to the girl and speaking shortly, “Here, for your nose.”

She resumed talking after giving Anne a moment to clear her nose and drop the tissue aside, she quickly saw how weary the girl was, “Anne, you precious firecracker, are you able to talk to me?”

Anne shook her head, new tears falling down her face. She tried to talk but it just came out as incoherent whimpers between heavy breaths. Jane found it apparent she was distressing herself more through making herself feel weak, she never thought she’d see Anne do that.

“Hey, hey, don’t force yourself to. I’ll ask questions and you’ll answer with nods, okay” Jane questioned and Anne nodded lightly.

The teenager almost seemed to dip forward a little too far and so Jane gently settled her hands on the girl’s shoulders to make her feel more stable. “Anne Boleyn, have you drank any water today?”, there was a shaken head, a negative response, “Food, have you eaten anything today?”, another shake, another negative. She tried one more question, “Did you eat or drink anything yesterday?” Her answer was neither a nod or a shake, she found the girl lifted her hand palm-down then tilted it back and forth to communicate a ‘kind of’ response.

Jane was confused, what the heck did that mean? She didn’t bother to question it, she knew Anne was feeling horrible even if she had eaten yesterday. “Okay, sweetheart, sit up against the backboard for me, will you? I’m going to get you some water and some soup. Try not to fall asleep, I don’t want your head hurting from dehydration when you wake up.”

She made sure that the teenager had positioned herself well before heading out of the room and shutting the door behind her in case she didn’t want anyone in passing to see her. Jane quickly got soup started and left it to itself for a moment as she made sure to grab a cold water bottle from the fridge and set it on the counter. The soup could never seem to be made fast enough, she desperately wanted to get back to the girl as soon as possible.

Being slightly speedy but also fairly normally paced, she got the soup from the pot into a bowl, nabbed a utensil from the drawer, grabbed the water and moved back to Anne’s side. The weak girl went to grab what Jane had brought before looking at her shaking hands and dropping them back down to her sides.

“Yeah, I couldn’t imagine you holding the soup,” Jane spoke before setting it on the bedside table. She brought the water closer to Anne, wondering if she could take the weight since she made sure not to bring it a glass since that’d have more weight to it, “Do you think you could hold the water?”

Anne nodded, using both hands to gently get a hold on it as she tipped it for a short drink before taking a second to breathe and doing it again more desperately as she gulped down most of the bottle, leaving only about a sixth left.

Jane felt a large amount of relief as she saw Anne regain a bit of color, a hope for recovery swelling in her own chest that she hoped the teenager felt while in her care. She then sat next to the still-pale girl and put a hand over hers.

“Do you think you’re ready to have soup,” Jane asked in more of a permission-giving manner despite how even if she said no she’d probably make her test having a bit anyway because she obviously needed it.

Luckily, Anne nodded a bit and Jane felt a small proudness follow. This girl was immensely tough, it was a great comfort for the woman. She grabbed the bowl before taking another look at the weary girl.

“You can crash out right after this, okay, sweetheart?” Jane saw her gain a little more life at her question as though she was ready to power through this so she could rest.

Anne accepted Jane’s assistance as she brought her through half the bowl before Anne held up a hand in pause. She saw the girl drop a color shade again for a second before taking a deep breath.

“Yes, good job, deep breath. Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?” Jane spoke, gaining a slight urgency at the question, ready to bolt for a trashcan to grab if needed.

The girl shook her head before taking another deep breath, then spoke softly, sounding as though her throat was sore, “I’m good, I got this.” Anne grabbed the bowl gently before putting it slowly in her own lap. She then stole the utensil.

Jane was thrown off a little by how much she seemed to recover for the moment as she fed herself. Or knowing Anne she was likely just being impatient and pushing through it for the sake of getting to sleep faster and potentially avoiding more conversation. She was already trying to build her walls back up.

“Sweetheart, do you think you’d be willing to explain why you were so upset,” Jane asked, she hated to stop her from doing as she wanted, but she knew better than to let Anne continue to slowly destroy herself.

Jane didn’t realize the question was more like a massive kick to whatever wall-builder was trying to get to work within her. Anne felt what little willpower she mustered drop and spoke a soft ‘one moment’ before finishing off her soup a bit more melancholically.

Anne slowly lifted the bowl for Jane to take, she took the bowl and set it on the bedside table. The girl let herself feel small, curling her legs back up to her and doing her best not to undo all the fresh hydration she’d just taken in, she had just returned to the closest she’s been to her normal color in a couple days.

“We can talk about it tomorrow if you want, I just don’t want you to close yourself off again,” Jane spoke in hopes of leading her into speaking about it, even if not tonight as she wanted to prioritize Anne’s rest over her personal worry.

Anne shook her head, her voice came out very soft, barely more than a whisper “I’ll tell you. I-I just need a moment to get all the words together.”

Jane nodded and a silence fell between them, Anne’s mind definitely felt like it was filling the quiet between them with heavy static and heavier thoughts. The woman couldn’t hear a single second of what was going on in her mind, but she waited for the girl to compose the letters into words and the words into meaningful sentences.

And the silence snapped under Anne’s quiet down-cast words, “I decided some time ago that I’d try and find out more about my daughter, _ma fille, mon ange_ .” She paused to take a breath, keeping back tears as her voice felt strained under her love for the girl and then kept looking at Jane in hopes of keeping her eyes occupied. “Then I continued digging and digging, I wanted to know it all. Every piece that I’d missed. I knew I could never find as much as I wanted, there’d never be videos of her behaviors as she grew, pictures of her as she transformed into a woman. There was nothing to stop me from looking, I had access to information and I needed to know all of it. Then I started trying to find a little more, hearing that your brother had married Parr, I started a search on something about him, something I don’t even remember what I had intended to learn but as I typed it I saw a horrifying search pop up under what I’d been typing. A single question that I needed to know after I’d read it. Did Thomas Seymour abuse Elizabeth? Even to see her name, I didn’t think it could be my daughter, I was so sure it might be someone else. What did I know, I wasn’t there, was it her? So I let the search fill, I let the results come up, I saw so many things. I needed to know what he’d done. I searched what horrible things he’d done, so many of the facts listed including him bothering _mon ange_ , not someone else’s little angel, _my_ angel. I wished that I got to execute him myself. So much hate keeps filling me, Jane. I keep feeling it. I think of Parr and immediately feel myself cursing her for not protecting my child. She could have done something, she-she should have done something! I mean-,” she took a deep breath, a couple tears breaking away from her eyes, “what the hell could I do, I was dead, I-I was a corpse in two pieces,” she habitually scratched her neck for a second at the mention of her death, “but Parr wasn’t! She could have done something, she was there in that time period, she knew how terrifying the men could be, she knew how horrific it was. And I saw words - more of them, more about her, how mon amour was tainted, hurting, her body in pain of what was potentially a result of his acts. Then she just kept falling further and further from other things but he did something, he caused a piece of it and I want him to take it back! I can’t do a thing, I can’t do a single thing about it! I-I don’t- I can’t- I didn’t- I-I died- I just wanted to- I couldn’t- It’s not my fault- but if I had-”

“Anne, sweetheart,” Jane sounded hardly normal, voice on the edge of cracking, Anne hadn’t even noticed the fact she started crying again, or the fact that Jane had tears to match hers.

With a small pause, Jane wiped both her own tears and those of the younger girl with a pair of fresh tissues. Jane moved next to Anne and felt the girl’s guard drop further as she tilted onto the woman’s shoulder, falling into the woman’s hold on her waist.

Jane’s tone steadied more as she spoke, she kept a soft tone, “You couldn’t do anything about it, but that isn’t your fault. I know it might take awhile for you to believe that, it’s hard to change a mindset like that. Especially when you’ve gone and holed yourself up in your room like this. Which I’m not blaming you for, I would have likely done the same in your case. I know it hurts, knowing that you missed so much from your child. Your Elizabeth lived a painfully long life, but that’s fine.” Jane’s voice fell even softer, “Do you know why?”

Anne had slightly tensed at the words that spoke of her daughter being in pain and somehow becoming defensive at the idea that it could even be something that was okay, Jane noticed, but decided to continue, figuring it would break the girl out of whatever thought she was having at the moment.

“Your girl, your light, your angel, your precious little Elizabeth has gone up to heaven right where she belongs. All of that pain, all that happened, all the horrors, the depression, the grieving, all of it has disappeared from her soul. Her spirit gets to live happily, watching and waiting for her mother to join her when the time comes.”

A large amount of the tension seemed to drop from Anna and fell straight into the ground. She squeaked out, “You really think so?” Jane felt Anna start to slightly tense up again, ready to be crushed with some form of betrayal.

“I do think so, that’s where my little Edward is as well. Right up there, waiting to finally see me. I’m sure they’re together up there, awaiting our arrival for when we’ve done all we were meant to on earth.” Jane felt her eyes leak again, just a little, at the thought. She was trying to be a boulder for Anne but the words hit so closely she couldn’t help but feel it too.

Anne broke down into shaking sobs once more, her body feeling so much lighter than before. She didn’t need to be held, her wounds were being mended as they sat there. The relief was like a truck, it hit hard and she felt the emotion throughout her entire body. Her body felt a little bad still but that seemed like nothing under the comfort of her new belief.

Anne moved closer to Jane, hugging her tightly and getting embraced even more snug in return. They both felt so calm and unified in their crying, Anne over daughter, Jane over Anne and Edward. It was a moment etched into their minds that no one could take from either of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I had a fun few hours writing this as a way to take a break from plot planning for the much longer story this moment belongs to.


End file.
